Nip/Tuck: "Ronnie Chase"Review

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Season 5 lives... but will Sean?

By Donna Rooney

Long ago and far away, in a distant time and distant place, a little TV show called Nip/Tuck left its audience with a cliffhanger of cliffhangers: Dr. Sean Macnamara on the operating room floor coughing up blood; his young daughter Annie, victim of a paparazzi-induced car crash unconscious on the operating table; Dr. Liz Cruz inexplicably out hunting for gauze and tape far beyond the scope of the well-stocked operating room! Lives and hearts hung in the balance; the audience held its collective breath.

Fortunately for the show, as well as the lives of of its blue-in-the-face fans, Nip/Tuck returns this Tuesday at 10 pm to finish the long overdue second half of the fifth season cut short by the Writers' Guild strike last winter. While many shows fell to the unfortunate fate of cancellation, others, like 24 and Nip/Tuck, were merely postponed for what seemed interminable amounts of time. While 24 gave its fans an extended teaser episode to keep their attention during an entire season's worth of darkness, Nip/Tuck simply continues business as usual with its returning episode "Ronnie Chase."

Clearly a mid-season installment rather than a new season premiere, "Ronnie Chase" ties up the aforementioned cliffhanger and helps propel the show forward for the seven episodes left to come in the official Season 5. Unfortunately, Ronnie Chase himself, a tattooed rocker attempting to shed evidence of his edgy past, seemed unable to stick around in the interim from taping to air as the focus fell on the primary characters for their return. Although a fairly pared down episode for Nip/Tuck, Sharon Gless returns as the excessively creepy and tragic fan/"talent agent" Colleen Rose to shed some insight on her love for and attack of Sean.

Though resolution seems to be the name of the game, there is still a bit of mystery surrounding Julia's recovery from being shot in the head by her lesbian lover's daughter Eden. And as Matt shows his face and his new cleaned-up persona for the briefest of appearances, he may bring to light some fan speculation about any truths behind the much-debated "future episode."

As for the future of this season, Liz stands by Christian as Nip/Tuck does what it does best: takes the story we expect and just before our eyes begin to roll, turns it on its head. And once again the philosophical and psychological implications of the challenges these characters now face gives a glimpse of why Nip/Tuck was and hopefully will continue to be revolutionary in the writers' abilities to play with social mores, storylines and fascinating character development. Though not without the grisly visuals and arousing images, this return to what can be considered the second half of Nip/Tuck's longest season to date (in episodes and in time) is thankfully missing the convenient storytelling that led the first half of the season astray but exudes an overall tameness that will hopefully leading to a quick and artful buildup for the future and end of this extended season.